The Other Dove

This piece plays on common Western iconography by suggesting an alternative to the ubiquitous Christian dove. The painting depicts a devotee of Vodou, a religion of West African origin. As part of their indoctrination into slavery in the Americas, African captives were forcibly baptized into the Christian faith in an attempt to obliterate their connection to their original culture. However, instead of these people totally abandoning their roots; they created a new religion that combined aspects of their indigenous belief system with parts of Western spirituality giving rise to a new religion. “The Other Dove” depicts a male figure holding the “dove” of Vodou.